FINAL REPORT EUROPEAN COMMISSION DIRECTORATE GENERAL FOR ENVIRONMENT RUE DE LA LOI, 200 B-1049 BRUSSELS MERCURY FLOWS IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD: THE IMPACT OF DECOMMISSIONED CHLOR-ALKALI PLANTS FJANUARYEBRUARY 2004 2004 Sprl concorde Av. René Gobert, 10 B-1180 Brussels +32(2) 374.36.47 concor [email protected] This report has been researched and prepared by Peter Maxson, Director, Concorde East/West Sprl, with all rea- sonable care and due diligence, in accordance with the terms of Study Contract Nº B4-3040/2002/340756/MAR/D3, “Mercury flows in Europe and the world.” The project was financed by the Environment Directorate-General of the Commission of the European Communities. Copyright in the report lies with the Commission. However, the report does not necessarily express the official views of the Commission, and the author remains responsible for its accu- racy. The Commission has granted permission to the author to distribute copies of the report on request, and to use the information collected for the report for other purposes. Any third parties who rely on information contained in this report, or their interpretation thereof, do so at their own risk. Mercury flows in Europe and the world: The impact of decommissioned chlor-alkali plants -- Final report -- Executive summary Purpose of this report – impact of mercury from the chlorine industry As stated in the project documents, the key objectives of this investigation were: 1. to get as good a picture as possible of the current mercury flows in Europe and the world; and 2. to get an idea of what impact the mercury obtained from decommissioned European mercury-based chlor-alkali plants might have on the world mercury market, and the re- sulting consequences in terms of mercury use patterns. This analysis is intended to support policy recommendations that will appear in the European Commission Mercury Strategy, which should also contain the main elements of a sustainability im- pact assessment (SIA), to be published in 2004 under the lead of the Commission’s Directorate General for Environment. The SIA needs to consider, among other things, such questions as whether there appears to be any increased environmental, health or other social risk due to the diffusion of mercury from decommissioned mercury cell chlor-alkali plants. Background – decommissioning of chlor-alkali plants In the last 15 years at least 34 sites in the Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, Finland, France, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Austria and Denmark have shut down all or part of their mercury-cell production processes. These decommissioned installations have either re-used the residual mercury in other operating mercury-based chlor-alkali installations, in order to make up for mercury lost to air, water, products and waste during operation, or they have sold the residual mercury on the open market. Concorde East/West Sprl Page ES-1 European Commission Brussels, Belgium DG Environment Mercury flows in Europe and the world: Executive summary – February 2004 The impact of decommissioned chlor-alkali plants Contract B4-3040/2002/340756/MAR/D3 In the EU and EFTA there are presently about 50 oper- Mercury cell chlor-alkali plants and chlorine production capacities in Western Europe, 2001 ating mercury cell chlor-alkali plants (see table), with a Mercury-cell process Total chlorine Mercury cell process Country capacity (’000 as a percent of total Number of Chlorine capacity tonnes) capacity combined chlorine production installations (’000 tonnes) capacity of over 5.8 million EU & EFTA countries tonnes per year. In line with Austria 0 0 55 0% the commitment of Euro Belgium 3 550 752 74% Chlor members (Euro Chlor, Finland 1 40 115 35% 2002c), these plants will be France 7 874 1686 52% decommissioned and/or con- verted to an alternative mer- Germany 10 1482 3972 37% cury-free process by 2020, Greece 1 37 37 100% as will a number of mercury Ireland 0 0 6 0% cell chlor-alkali plants in the Italy 9 812 982 83% US and elsewhere. Consider- Netherlands 1 70 624 11% ing only the European mer- Portugal 1 43 89 48% cury cell chlor-alkali plants, Spain 9 762 802 95% this decommissioning activity Sweden 2 220 310 71% will release some 12 thou- United Kingdom 3 856 1091 78% sand tonnes of relatively pure EU total 47 5746 10521 55% (commodity grade) process Norway 0 0 180 0% mercury, much of which Switzerland 3 104 104 100% could end up on the interna- EU+EFTA total 50 5850 10805 54% tional mercury market. In or- der to address that issue, Accession countries Euro Chlor members and the Bulgaria 1 105 105 100% Spanish mercury mining and Czech Republic 2 183 183 100% trading company, MAYASA, Hungary 1 125 125 100% have signed an agreement Poland 3 230 460 50% whereby industry agrees to Romania 1 88 633 14% sell its residual mercury to Slovak Republic 1 76 76 100% “an established mercury pro- ducer so as to displace new Turkey 0 0 168 0% Accession countries production of the equivalent total 9 807 1750 46% quantity of virgin mercury.” While this agreement clearly represents an effort by the signatories to responsibly address the po- tential problem of residual mercury, others have the view that there are not yet adequate controls on where this mercury would be sold or how it would be used. Euro Chlor has committed itself to a 2020 phase-out date for Western European mercury cell chlor- alkali plants. The chlor-alkali industry is also covered by the IPPC Directive, which requires installa- tions to have permit conditions based on best available techniques (BAT). The mercury-cell proc- ess is not considered to be BAT for the chlor-alkali sector. The Directive states in Article 5 that ex- isting installations, i.e., installations in operation before 30 October 1999, should operate in accor- dance with the requirements of the Directive by 30 October 2007. Alternatively, a number of EU countries have announced that their mercury cell chlor-alkali plants will be decommissioned and/or converted to mercury-free technology by 2010, in line with a more flexible interpretation of the IPPC Directive. The latter date is also consistent with the PARCOM decision 90/3 of OSPAR, which recommended closing or converting all mercury cell plants in the OSPAR region by 2010. All of the EU-15 countries with mercury cell plants are parties to the OSPAR Convention except Italy and Greece. Concorde East/West Sprl Page ES-2 European Commission Brussels, Belgium DG Environment Mercury flows in Europe and the world: Executive summary – February 2004 The impact of decommissioned chlor-alkali plants Contract B4-3040/2002/340756/MAR/D3 Context – mercury market structure The approach taken in this analysis was to understand as well as possible the different facets of the EU and global mercury markets - imports, exports, supply , demand, key players, prices, etc. Then a “baseline” scenario was developed, along with two possible variations on that scenario, to suggest at what rate residual Mercury from US & USSR strategic mercury from decommissioned stockpiles Hg recovered from decommissioned mercury cell chlor-alkali plants Total global mercury supply mercury cell chlor-alkali facilities might come onto the market. Recycled mercury Finally, the impact of each of Mining & by-product mercury those scenarios on the interna- 8000 tional mercury market was as- sessed. 7000 6000 Global mercury supply to the markets is dominated by three 5000 main nations that mine mercury for export (Spain, Kyrgyzstan 4000 (tonnes) Mercury and Algeria), and China, which 3000 has long supplied its own robust home market. Both Spain and 2000 China may be in the process of closing their mines, especially 1000 as other sources seem to be 0 growing, and mercury remains 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 so inexpensive on the interna- 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 tional market. Due to a range of factors - government subsidies to mercury production by mines, sales of mercury holdings from the US and the USSR governments, sales of mercury inventories from closing chlor- alkali plants, increasing recovery/recycling of secondary mercury, and greatly shrunken demand for mercury within industrialized economies - there has been an abundance of mercury Global mercury consumption, 2000 available to the market during recent dec- (tonnes) ades, forcing mercury prices down and hold- Electrical Other uses ing them at a historically low level. This has control & (175) switching led to the closure of all private mines, and (154) curtailment of production at any but the low- Small-scale est-cost remaining government sponsored (or Lighting (91) gold & silver mining (650) owned) mines. As calculated for this paper, Measuring the mercury supply from 1994-2000 has av- and control eraged 3600 tonnes per year, and from 1996- (166) Dental 2000 the average has been about 3400 ton- amalgam nes per year, which one could take as a (272) rough estimate of global mercury supply in 2000. Chlor-alkali (797) Demand for mercury has long been wide- spread, but the global mercury commodity Batteries market is small in both tonnage and value of (1081) sales. Most transactions are among private parties and not publicly reported. While con- Concorde East/West Sprl Page ES-3 European Commission Brussels, Belgium DG Environment Mercury flows in Europe and the world: Executive summary – February 2004 The impact of decommissioned chlor-alkali plants Contract B4-3040/2002/340756/MAR/D3 tinuing its long-term decline in most of the OECD countries, there is evidence that demand for mercury remains relatively robust in many developing economies, yet there is very little public data pertaining to its end use in many nations.